A Hat Full Of Sky - Terry Pratchett [51]
“Verra good for the stealin’, mirrors,” said Rob Anybody. “We got oour Jeannie a silver one wi’ garnets in the frame.”
“And she’d say ‘See me’?” said Miss Level.
“Aye, an’ then ‘See me not,’” said Big Yan. “An’ betweentimes she’d stand verra still, like a stachoo.”
“Sounds like she was trying to invent some kind of invisibility spell,” Miss Level mused. “They don’t work like that, of course.”
“We reckoned she was just tryin’ to throw her voice,” said Nearly Big Angus. “So it sounds like it’s comin’ fra’ somewhere else, ye ken? Wee Iain can do that a treat when we’re huntin’.”
“Throw her voice?” said Miss Level, her brow wrinkling. “Why did you think that?”
“’Cuz when she said, ‘See me not,’ it sounded like it wuz no’ comin fra’ her, and her lips didnae move.”
Miss Level stared at the Feegles. When she spoke next, her voice was a little strange.
“Tell me,” she said, “when she was just standing there, was she moving at all?”
“Just breathin’ verra slow, mistress,” said Big Yan.
“Were her eyes shut?”
“Aye!”
Miss Level started to breathe very fast.
“She walked out of her own body! There’s not one—”
“—witch in a hundred who can do that!” she said. “That’s Borrowing, that is! It’s better than any circus trick! It’s putting—”
“—your mind somewhere else! You have to—”
“—learn how to protect yourself before you ever try it! And she just invented it because she didn’t have a mirror? The little fool, why didn’t she—”
“—say? She walked out of her own body and left it there for anything to take over! I wonder what—”
“—she thought she was—”
“—doing?”
After a while Rob Anybody gave a polite cough.
“We’re better at questions about fightin’, drinkin’, and stealin’,” he mumbled. “We dinna have the knowin’ o’ the hagglin’.”
CHAPTER 7
The Matter of Brian
Something that called itself Tiffany flew across the treetops.
It thought it was Tiffany. It could remember everything—nearly everything—about being Tiffany. It looked like Tiffany. It even thought like Tiffany, more or less. It had everything it needed to be Tiffany…
…except Tiffany. Except the tiny part of her that was… her.
It peered from her own eyes, tried to hear with her own ears, think with her own brain.
A hiver took over its victim not by force, exactly, but simply by moving into any space, like the hermit elephant.* It just took you over because that was what it did, until it was in all the places and there was no room left…
…except…
…it was having trouble. It had flowed through her like a dark tide but there was a place, tight and sealed, that was still closed. If it had had the brains of a tree, it would have been puzzled.
If it had had the brains of a human, it would have been frightened….
Tiffany brought the broomstick in low over the trees and landed it neatly in Mrs. Earwig’s garden. There really was nothing to it, she decided. You just had to want it to fly.
Then she was sick again, or at least tried to be, but since she’d thrown up twice in the air, there wasn’t much left to be sick with. It was ridiculous! She wasn’t frightened of flying anymore, but her stupid stomach was!
She wiped her mouth carefully and looked around.
She’d landed on a lawn. She’d heard of them, but had never seen a real one before. There was grass all around Miss Level’s cottage, but that was just, well, the grass of the clearing. Every other garden she’d seen was used for growing vegetables, with perhaps just a little space for flowers if the wife had gotten tough about it. A lawn meant you were posh enough to afford to give up valuable potato space.
This lawn had stripes.
Tiffany turned to the stick and said, “Stay!” and then marched across the lawn to the house. It was a lot grander than Miss Level’s cottage, but from what Tiffany had heard, Mrs. Earwig was a more senior witch. She’d also married a wizard, although he didn’t do any wizarding these days. It was a funny thing, Miss Level said, but you didn’t often meet a poor wizard.
She knocked at the door and waited.
There